SLPP National Organiser and MP Namal Rajapaksa asked Parliament on Thursday what action would be taken against Inspector General of Police Priyantha Weerasooriya, arguing that the same legal standard should apply to the police chief as to Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera.
Rajapaksa said the public was waiting to see what consequences the IGP would face over allegations that he had disregarded a court order and provided false information to court in a case involving the prosecution of innocent people, the Daily Mirror reported at 6.24 p.m.
The comparison he drew
“Gnanasara Thera was accused of contempt of court over a statement he made concerning a person linked to the LTTE. We are now waiting to see what happens to the IGP, who disregarded a court ruling against filing cases against innocent people on false charges by providing false information to court,” he said.
He then tied the point to a government commitment: “The President has said that the law is equal for everyone. We are waiting to see what happens to the IGP.”
The argument is a symmetry claim rather than a defence of the monk. Rajapaksa does not dispute the contempt case against Gnanasara Thera in the remarks as reported; he uses it as the benchmark against which he says the IGP’s conduct should be measured.
Where the Gnanasara case stands
Ven. Gnanasara Thera is serving a prison sentence, and a campaign demanding his release has been running as a satyagraha at Viharamahadevi Park in Colombo. A court order requiring the participants to leave the site was read out to them on Thursday evening, after which police withdrew without removing anyone.
That campaign has itself been shaped by court orders. A Fort magistrate on 16 October barred 54 people connected to it, 30 of them monks, from the area around the Presidential Secretariat.
Separately, former president Maithripala Sirisena’s account of the earlier presidential pardon granted to the monk — which Sirisena has described as resting on a technical error — remains part of the public argument over the case.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror’s filing does not identify the case in which the IGP is alleged to have disregarded a court ruling, does not name the court, and does not say whether any contempt proceedings have been initiated against him. It gives no response from the IGP, the Police Media Division or the government.
It also does not say whether Rajapaksa was speaking on a specific item of parliamentary business or in a general debate, and it carries no reaction from other members.
This desk has not previously covered the underlying allegation against the IGP, so the characterisation above is Rajapaksa’s as reported, not an independently established account of the case.
